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What does MacauSlot know about the China-Thailand soccer match?

By Bookmakers Review23 June 2013

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On June 15, China lost to Thailand a friendly soccer match at home 1-5, giving rise to reports that the Chinese national team deliberately threw the game.

According to Want China Times, leading Asian bookmaker MacauSlot stopped accepting bets on the match just a minute before Thailand scored the first of its five goals citing a technical glitch as the reason.

Many Chinese soccer fans believe that odds of 600 to 1 for China to lose by four goals or more were the real motive behind the uninspiring performance against a Thailand national team 47 places below China in the FIFA rankings.

China has seen more than its share of soccer scandals in recent years, with a former national team captain and at least four national team players as well as two former heads of the Chinese Football Association convicted for taking bribes and tens of players and officials, including the country's top referee, jailed for match fixing.

MacauSlot is Macau's sports betting monopoly, offering soccer and basketball betting to over 100k registered customers of which 30k bet every month.

Chinese soccer fans have called for the Macau bookmaker to make public any suspicious betting activity that could have caused MacauSlot to stop accepting bets on the China-Thailand soccer match. Elsewhere, UK bookmaker William Hill said it will no longer take bets on the Chinese national football team in the future.